Saturday, December 24, 2011

Adrenals (Cushings)

I developed Cushing's as a result of a rare protozoa parasite infection. Cushing's is rare in that it affects approximately 10 per million every year, not that this is bad enough but my case of Cushing's is relatively unknown as it was/is being caused by a protozoa parasite. I received all the typical testing procedures Cat Scan of adrenals and MRI scans of the pituitary with negatives on both.

Cushing's is a hard disease on the body since you are simply producing catabolic (destructive) hormones on a continual basis, virtually the same thing as taking steroids of which you cannot take for long periods of time. They have such deleterious effects on the body. On the onset, I began to demonstrate very strange symptoms such as extreme muscle weakness, emotional issues and of course the mental issues all Cushing's patients suffer. The body must meet the demands of stress and requires copious amounts of things to do that and when the needs are not met then the wheels fall off. That is what happened to me, and to be honest, it was quite scary.

I will never forget the day when I collapsed on the floor breathing heavily, hallucinating, too weak to get off the floor. It was a Friday and I was late to work in the middle of a cold January day. I could not physically get off the floor and laid there for a good amount of time praying that I would be ok, it was a scary place. After regaining some strength, I stood in the doorway gasping the cold air, my heart beating out of control. My mind was racing and I felt absolutely psychotic. I called my family at our business and told my mother she needed to leave work, something was terribly wrong. They took me to the emergency room where the doctor probed me, I told her I was having a panic attack. This was much more than a panic attack, it was a hardcore assault on my body and mind. I was in a complete state of mental disharmony and should have begged them to admit me to the psych ward. Little did I know that my electrolytes were non-existent due to the adrenal exhaustion, sodium, potassium and the critical magnesium control neural pathways.

In my case, I developed Cushing's from the immune response caused by the parasites. I spent countless hours in research trying to understand this. Fortunately I was able to talk to a research endocrinologist Dr. Malarkey who answered my question about adrenal involvement in infectious states. I was able to find a reference in the Endocrinology textbook at the Ohio State Medical Library concerning this phenomena.

In the meantime, I was able to stabilize the adrenal glands thanks to Adelle Davis' advice in her first book, the chapter was on stress. I added to her protocol, adrenal glandulars which finally began to heal the adrenals. I still am living with the Cushing's after all this time and continue to explore methods to eradicate the parasite that is evoking the adrenal response so that I might have a 'normal' life whatever that may be :)